The Haunted Staircase
by Esther Kirkland
Summary: A haunted mansion full of mysterious junk - what could go wrong? But Stan goes missing, the twins find themselves in a race against time to solve the mystery before the Ghost of the Manor disappears with Stan – for good! **An adventure fic, no real ships, no real theories - just adventure. Set mid-first-season.


Dipper counted back the change on a twenty. "And five dollars and fifteen cents is your change. Thanks for stopping by the Mystery Shack." He watched as the day-tripper family walked out, carrying their purchases, and sighed, resting his chin on his hand.

"Why the long face?" Wendy dropped a pile of boxed snow globes on the counter. "Stan isn't still giving you grief about the suit, is he?"

Dipper shuddered. "I am _never_ wearing that again," he declared, tugging his cap tighter over his head. "I'm glad Mabel won, but…eugh."

Just earlier that week, Stan and Mabel had bet against each other and Mabel had ended up running the Shack for a few days. It had been a… less-than-successful experiment, to put it mildly. Everything worked out in the end, but Stan had grabbed a few stills from the security tapes of Dipper wearing an itchy suit and too-tight string tie, and simply wasn't going to let Dipper live it down anytime soon.

"Don't sweat it, man," Wendy waved her hand and passed Dipper a stack of the boxes. "Something'll happen to distract him. Always does."

"I hope it happens soon," he muttered, slicing open the box tops and unpacking the globes.

"Great news!" Stan exclaimed, bursting into the gift shop from the door that led into the main house. "Dipper! I won't be teasing you about that suit anymore. I've got something else on my mind!"

Wendy gave Dipper a knowing glance. "Told ya."

Stan waved a piece of paper. "These two old ladies came through the Shack a few weeks ago, and kept yammerin' about how they had a bigger unimoosicorn, or a better-preserved giant lake monkey, or a shinier collection of glass eyeballs. Blah, blah, blah. Anyway, apparently they're looking to sell some of their junk off, and they're giving _me_ first dibs!"

"Wow, really?" Dipper wondered if these two 'old ladies' had anything _truly_ interesting in their collection; anything like his journal, or those wax figures, or… Well, basically anything _other_ than glass eyeballs. "Are they bringing the stuff here?"

"Nope – that's the great news part." Stan stabbed at the letter with his index finger, grinning broadly. "Says right here that they want us to come and see their place ourselves."

"We?" Dipper raised an eyebrow.

Mabel appeared in the door behind Stan. She was wearing a big backpack and an even bigger smile. "We're going too!" she shouted. "Pack a bag, Dippin' Dots – we're going to a _mansion_!"

* * *

'Mansion' described the Carson Manor like 'kitschy' described the Mystery Shack, Dipper decided, staring up with wide eyes as Stan pulled into the drive. Technically correct, but somehow completely failing to capture the idea.

The enormous brick building was three stories high in most places, and climbed another two on each wing that flanked the main house. Stately elms, giant specimens, lined the long gravel driveway, which swooped down the hill from the main road and curved gently around the front of the house. Large white pillars framed the majestic front doors, and white shutters sat primly around every window. The roof was steeply sloped and covered in dark slate, edged in soft green where moss had grown. Dark trails of ivy draped the walls, spotted with white and pink roses. The entire picture had an air of immaculate gentility, and Dipper was suddenly _extremely_ aware of his wrinkled t-shirt, the rattling of the car's engine, and Grunkle Stan's unique, vaguely meaty odor.

"Yowza," Stan whistled, his eyes wide. Dipper could practically see the cartoon dollar signs flashing there. "Haven't been in a joint like this since…" he glanced sidelong at the twins in the rearview mirror. "Um. Well. A while." He threw the car in park, and popped open his door. "Or never. Probably never."

Mabel jumped out as soon as the engine stopped, and spun around to take in the whole of the place. "This is _amazing_ ," she breathed. "Probably a gentleman on a pure white horse is going to come trotting along any second now."

Dipper, a little more reluctantly than his sister, hopped out of the car and hefted his backpack onto his shoulder. "I dunno, Mabel," he said. He glanced up at the house – and for a second, he could have sworn he saw a woman standing in one of the high windows. But when he blinked, there was nothing but the reflection of the sun in the glass.

He shivered anyway. "This place kinda gives me the creeps."

Mabel put her hands on her hips. "Dipper, are you crazy? Look at this joint! It's fantastic! It's straight out of a storybook! And we get to explore it – aren't you even a little excited?"

She had said the magic word: explore. Dipper felt his worries fade away – if not entirely, at least mostly – and excitement take their place.

"Right, right," he said. "I'm just being… you know. Me. Whatever."

The enormous front door creaked open, and a white-haired woman in a blue pantsuit stood smiling at them.

"You must be the Pines," she said warmly. "Welcome to Carson Manor; I'm Helen. Come on in – you must be hungry. It's quite a drive from Gravity Falls."

Stan motioned for the twins to follow him, and they all moved into the cool dimness of the house. It took a moment for Dipper's eyes to adjust to the difference in the light, and he found himself blinking in a large, open foyer. The floors were shining tile and the walls – papered a dark green – were hung with large, expensive-looking paintings of fox hunts and unidentified battles and vaguely judging people in old-timey outfits.

"We've got some snacks laid out in the kitchen," the woman said. "Hope you don't mind eating in there – in the old days, we would have used the parlor, but it's been so long since any of them were really used…"

"Hey, food's food, I always say," Stan said. He paused to tap on the corner of a picture frame. "Is that real gold?"

Helen had just opened her mouth to answer, when a piercing scream rang out from the depths of the house.

Her hand flew to her mouth and she exclaimed, "Rose!"

There was an enormous _crash_ , and Helen took off hurrying toward the source of the sound, Stan and the twins close behind.

They burst through a swinging door at the end of a long hallway, and found another woman standing in a sea of broken pottery, her hands covered in white flour dust and clasped to her chest, leaving white smudges all over the front of her red blouse. The floor of the room – the kitchen, Dipper realized – was covered in shattered plates and cups, and there didn't seem to be an unbroken dish in sight.

"Helen!" the woman cried, tears streaming down her face. "It's happened again!" She jabbed a finger at the broken crockery and declared, in a voice that wavered with emotion:

"It's the ghost!"

* * *

 **A/N:**

Here we go, guys! Diving into another pure adventure fic. Is there a ghost? What does it want? And what the heck is a unimoosicorn? :D Leave a review unless you're working for Bill, and I'll see you all next week!

~Essie


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